For Savage Combat and Blood Frenzy, the question is simple: who does more damage, a Savage Combat Rogue or a Blood Frenzy Warrior? Since both talents are worth taking for other than the raid buff, this basically comes down to: Combat Rogue or Arms Warrior? The Arms warrior in my guild is of the opinion that the Combat Rogue probably wins that, but I can't swear to that; the point is, regardless of which is true talent-by-talent, the answer is going to be whichever spec does more overall damage.
The issue is actually a bit more complex. Keep in mind things may change, however the following is the full analysis:
First of all, the debuff has to be worthwhile (and it is very likely that it will be).
As to who would spec it, it's not quite clear-cut that the class who does more damage as Arms/Assassination should be the one to spec it. For example (and I'll make up numbers that are probably far too out of whack just to make my point), let's suppose a Fury Warrior did 3500 DPS and an Assassination Rogue did 3100 DPS. Now's let's propose an Arms Warrior does 3060 DPS and a Combat Rogue does 3000 DPS. It seems pretty clear that you'd want your Rogue to respec and not your warrior, despite the fact that your Arms Warrior does more damage than your Combat Rogue. So I think the real question is not whether your Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue does more damage, but whether you lose less DPS by having your Warrior or Rogue respec.
The issue is actually a bit more complex. Keep in mind things may change, however the following is the full analysis:
First of all, the debuff has to be worthwhile (and it is very likely that it will be).
As to who would spec it, it's not quite clear-cut that the class who does more damage as Arms/Assassination should be the one to spec it. For example (and I'll make up numbers that are probably far too out of whack just to make my point), let's suppose a Fury Warrior did 3500 DPS and an Assassination Rogue did 3100 DPS. Now's let's propose an Arms Warrior does 3060 DPS and a Combat Rogue does 3000 DPS. It seems pretty clear that you'd want your Rogue to respec and not your warrior, despite the fact that your Arms Warrior does more damage than your Combat Rogue. So I think the real question is not whether your Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue does more damage, but whether you lose less DPS by having your Warrior or Rogue respec.
Sure - if you're talking in terms of respeccing people in the raid, the damage drop is the more relevant indicator. But in terms of recruiting and managing WotLK rerolls and otherwise shaping the usual content of your raid guild, if Arms Warriors do 3000 and Combat Rogues do 3500, most guilds - or most top guilds, anyway - will prefer to recruit an extra rogue and plan to fill that spot with a a Combat Rogue rather than recruiting a warrior to do it.
It's basically how you want to look at the problem; if it's "I have 25 people in my raid and need to respec one for the debuff", then your analysis is correct; if it's "I have 24 people in my raid and can bring either an Arms warrior or a Combat rogue for the 25th slot and the debuff", the absolute numbers matter more.
All of this, of course, only reinforces the point I was trying to make, which is that figuring out who keeps what debuffs up is more complicated than the person i was replying to made it out to be.
For Savage Combat and Blood Frenzy, the question is simple: who does more damage, a Savage Combat Rogue or a Blood Frenzy Warrior? Since both talents are worth taking for other than the raid buff, this basically comes down to: Combat Rogue or Arms Warrior? The Arms warrior in my guild is of the opinion that the Combat Rogue probably wins that, but I can't swear to that; the point is, regardless of which is true talent-by-talent, the answer is going to be whichever spec does more overall damage.
The issue is actually a bit more complex. Keep in mind things may change, however the following is the full analysis:
First of all, the debuff has to be worthwhile (and it is very likely that it will be).
As to who would spec it, it's not quite clear-cut that the class who does more damage as Arms/Assassination should be the one to spec it. For example (and I'll make up numbers that are probably far too out of whack just to make my point), let's suppose a Fury Warrior did 3500 DPS and an Assassination Rogue did 3100 DPS. Now's let's propose an Arms Warrior does 3060 DPS and a Combat Rogue does 3000 DPS. It seems pretty clear that you'd want your Rogue to respec and not your warrior, despite the fact that your Arms Warrior does more damage than your Combat Rogue. So I think the real question is not whether your Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue does more damage, but whether you lose less DPS by having your Warrior or Rogue respec.
I really don't foresee any problems here. To begin with, I believe that most raiding guilds will go retri pala/combat rogue/fury warrior, as it covers the basics of Heart of the Crusader and Savage Combat, along with the warrior that has the highest dps output. The only situation where the warrior may have to respec to Blood Frenzy would be on poison immune bosses, and even if the warrior would lose - lets say 500 dps (going from 3500 to 3000) - the overall loss in raid dps would be, in a enviroment with 10 to 12 physical damage dealers of an average of - lets say - 3000 dps, about 2%, which in a fight of 5 minutes would amount to 6 seconds. So it really isn't that huge of a problem, and I believe most guilds or players wouldn't make any issue out of it, unless it is on a fight, where 6 seconds on a 5 minute boss fight would mean either wipe or kill.
Just to be clear, you would get Overkill every two minutes, not every 6 minutes.
I suppose the poison damage lost can easily be rectified by putting those Imp Evis points in Vile Poisons (and using Envenom instead of Evis), although it seems like the extra Rupture and Evis damage from Serrated Blades would be making up for any such loss anyway.
Edit:
The suggested build isn't the optimal dps build, but is maybe a better build for it's greater utility.
You didn't address 2 of my reasons for investing those subtlety points: more accessible Cloak of Shadows and a better Sap (good luck sapping level 82 elite trash without MoD or DT). And perhaps most important is the question of how is the armor penetration bonus from Serrated Blades going to be changed?
@Chalon: What other "serious blunders" did I make in Assassination other than not having points in Vile Poisons?
Edit 2: removed comment about TtT vs CQC
Yes, you can overkill every two minutes, but without elusiveness you can still overkill every three minutes. If you're spamming vanish for overkill, you gain one vanish every six minutes by taking elusiveness, not one every two minutes.
I acknowledged that elusiveness had wonderful utility--even without overkill lower cd on vanish is nice, and obviously shorter cd on cloak is excellent--but trying to construe the cooldown reduction on vanish as a significant dps gain is foolish. I've never had a problem sapping 71-72 trash in heroics as combat; I solo'd the durnholde bombing numerous times post-imp sap buff as combat, and we've had our combat rogues sap sunwell trash without any trouble. Which is not to say that it's worthless--shorter blind and easier sap are both very nice for heroics. They just don't improve raid dps.
As long as you understand you're going for a utility build rather than max dps, I don't really have any further criticism. I'm just so used to people theorycrafting the perfectly min/maxed spec in these boards. :P
The issue is actually a bit more complex. Keep in mind things may change, however the following is the full analysis:
First of all, the debuff has to be worthwhile (and it is very likely that it will be).
As to who would spec it, it's not quite clear-cut that the class who does more damage as Arms/Assassination should be the one to spec it. For example (and I'll make up numbers that are probably far too out of whack just to make my point), let's suppose a Fury Warrior did 3500 DPS and an Assassination Rogue did 3100 DPS. Now's let's propose an Arms Warrior does 3060 DPS and a Combat Rogue does 3000 DPS. It seems pretty clear that you'd want your Rogue to respec and not your warrior, despite the fact that your Arms Warrior does more damage than your Combat Rogue. So I think the real question is not whether your Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue does more damage, but whether you lose less DPS by having your Warrior or Rogue respec.
What I was more referring to actually, was the fact that both arms warrior and rogue will have one point in their respective talent already, to get their trees to 51 points. This leaves 20 talent points to spend elsewhere.
Keep in mind also, that both will have close to similar DPS if we can believe Blizz's intentions, so what are the two going to do with their remaining 20 talentpoints? I'm not worried about raidspots here, but thinking about a raid with both a Combat Rogue and an Arms Warrior. Does either one have a talentpoint left in those remaining 20 talentpoints, that can be moved to respectively Savage Combat or Blood Frenzy, with the least loss in personal/raid DPS or the most personal/raid DPS gain.
So I'm not talking about a Combat rogue having to respec speccing Muti, or an Arms warrior having to respec Fury for maximizing, I'm just wondering which of the two is the best to put that 1 extra talentpoint into the raidbuff.
Originally Posted by Skwerl
Yeah, but correct me if I'm wrong here losing precision means you have to get more hit
You are wrong, in WotLK, you won't be gemming for hit, except to activate socketbonusses, or maybe as a Combat Rogue for Combat Potency. Capping hit is going to be close to impossible anyway it seems, so the only thing to really go for is the yellowcap, which is within reach even without gemming specifically for it. So no, people won't be gemming for hit to improve DPS, they'll gem for Agi or AP like Combat Rogues.
Combat rogues are the only rogues for who the value of +hit doesn't drop dramatically after yellowcapping, for other specs, +hit is much less important.
Top 3 stats per spec in order of importance:
Assassination: Crit (for Focused Attacks), AP, Agi
Combat: Hit (for Combat Potency), Agi, AP
Sub: Agi, AP, Crit (Honor Among Thieves & Waylay)
This is just a rough rule of thumb. Spreadsheets, as always, are your best friends on these matters
Agi and AP are very close in importance though, their item budgetting usually works like 2 AP being worth 1 Agi. Their effective values are a little different from that, but only very marginal.
Just as a note: it's been shown in this thread that stacking hit to benefit combat potency is not particularly worthwhile in the expansion. And it's also been shown that stacking hit up to the spell hit cap *is* somewhat worthwhile, particularly for Mutilate builds. So while you're correct about everyone not necessarily wanting to stack hit, you're pretty much dead wrong on which stats are and aren't valuable for each spec.
Ashere, that's the point I was trying to make, you don't want to be gemming for hit, especially if you're mutilate.
*edit*
So here's a question for the poster above. What is the spell hit cap? I'm imagining that would be right around where I would want to stay. I've been testing out mutilate on the PTR, but I've been combat for as long as I can remember so I'm gemmed for combat. I re-gemmed on live and re-specced mutilate just for the hell of it for the next week and a half until 3.0 goes live and I'm sitting at 220 hit. I still have some 5 hit 5 agility gems in there and one or two 10 hit rating gems that I haven't built up the badges to replace yet. I've read about 50 pages of this thread over the past two days (new user here) but I've either passed over, or completely forgotten with the amount of information I'm trying to absorb and comprehend, any mention of the spell hit cap.
*edit again*
Also, I'm wondering how 2 AP can be superior to 1 Agi even if it is a 2 to 1 ratio. With Agility you're also getting crit, which is very important from my understanding for FA...more crits = more energy = more specials, right?
Spell Hit Cap: 17% x 26.23199272 = 446
With Precision: 12% x 26.23199272 = 315
With Precision and Imp FF or Misery: 9% x 26.23199272 = 237
With Precision and Imp FF or Misery and Draenei: 8% x 26.23199272 = 210
For level 70s.
Spell Hit Cap: 17% x 12.61538506 = 215
With Precision: 12% x 12.61538506 = 152
With Precision and Imp FF or Misery: 9% x 12.61538506 = 114
With Precision and Imp FF or Misery and Draenei: 8% x 12.61538506 = 101
Spell Hit Cap: 17% x 26.23199272 = 446
With Precision: 12% x 26.23199272 = 315
With Precision and Imp FF or Misery: 9% x 26.23199272 = 237
For level 80s.
I was actually just looking for the level 70 stats atm for 3.0, but that's good to know. Curious, where do you get those numbers from?
I'm guessing 17% is base chance to resist? And the lower percent are talented percentages, but what's the 26.23199272 from? Forgive my noobish questions
17 is the base chance to resist against a +3 mob; 26.23... is the number of points of hit rating required for 1% spell hit - see this thread for all the conversions. Also note that the Draenei racial aura will also affect the amount of hit needed.
However, it should be mentioned that the yellow hit cap is not a "magic number" of any sort - hit is worth more below it, and less above it, but it's by no means a case of needing to sacrifice anything and everything to get. Items with hit on them will be worth more below that number, so you may find yourself selecting hit-heavier gear; but you still want to follow EP values for selecting gear and gems. Even below the poison hit cap, Hit Rating is not currently believed to be more than the 3rd-best stat for either Assassination or Combat (behind Agi and AP in both cases, by my best estimates).
Hey guys, i read these thread for a long time and now i decided to join in for throw in some opinions and points to disscuss... so first of all:
correct me if im wrong but isnt gemming expertise until cap the best aviable option for a combat rogue since its gemmable?
(yes im planing to play combat in wotlk becouse i dont like assa that much somehow ;D)
Hey guys, i read these thread for a long time and now i decided to join in for throw in some opinions and points to disscuss... so first of all:
correct me if im wrong but isnt gemming expertise until cap the best aviable option for a combat rogue since its gemmable?
(yes im planing to play combat in wotlk becouse i dont like assa that much somehow ;D)
With TBC stat weights, yes. WotLK stat weights vary greatly from TBC's. Check the past couple of pages for your answer, the table has been listed and quoted several times.
Well, we launch a finisher about once every 10 seconds; each finisher has a 30% chance to proc IP, doing about 1500 damage. So the difference in IP damage is about 1500 * .3 / 10 = 45 DPS, while the damage gain on Deadly Poison from that extra attack is more like 5 DPS. So by putting a fast weapon in the MH, we gain a free 40 DPS in poison procs, give up 11 DPS in Mutilate damage, and thus come out 30 DPS ahead relative to putting the slow weapon MH.
Excuse me for reviving this part of the discussion, but I believe Rupture was changed a while back to not count as a hit. Same goes for Expose Armor and both abilities are thus unable to proc poisons. For a 5e/5r CttC cycle, this means a possible Instant Poison Proc every 20secs instead of every 10secs. Wouldn't this reduce the benefit of mainhanding a fast dagger to 22.5 and the difference between slow/fast and fast/slow to a 1/3 of what you suggested?
Same mob, same equip, still no buffs besides poisons.
I have no real daggers on live, therefore I equipped the badges daggers: [Blade of Serration] main hand and [Swift Blade of Uncertainty] off hand.
May not be the best choice, but the best I could acquire. Try finding a fast main hand / one handed dagger outside of raid instances.
Additionally I enchanted both with Mongoose, and let me tell you, that was quite an experience on the PTR without any mats brought by yourself.
My talent build was the 'classic' 51/5/5, without Murder.
I did two sessions, the first one only ~13 minutes, then the server disconnected, and the second ~55 minutes, for a total of 58 minutes and 50 seconds of constant beating on the mob.
The results:
Overall
7700581
dmg
3530
sec
2181.5
DPS
#
Damage
%
DPS
Melee:
6743
3297956
42.83%
934.27
Mutilate:
1250
1732950
22.50%
490.92
Rupture:
1459
446025
5.79%
126.35
Deadly Poison VII:
1103
593978
7.71%
168.27
Instant Poison VII:
1765
1058734
13.75%
299.92
Envenom:
194
570938
7.41%
161.74
Total:
7700581
100.00%
2181.5
I have to say, this test was so far the most pleasant one, you don't have to focus as much as combat or even shiv, as your energy comes in slower and you don't have as large jumps in energy due to missing combat potency. All very smooth.
The difference is 206.6 DPS compared to my last SS combat test, which ended up with 1920.9 DPS. Although I have to admit the test environment does favor Mutilatee quite a bit. You have a higher crit rate against a level 60 mob, and Mutilate is more crit dependent than SS, which only benefit is the SS glyph here. Also, with Mutilate you don't have Precision on level 70, which are 5 wasted talent points for combat, since you already are at the hit cap against a mob that low. And third, Prey on the Weak are another 5 talent points not working on this specific test case.
However, I do not know if all of this makes up for the 9.5% difference I am seeing between Mutilate and Combat.
In regards of Hunger for Blood, this basically is the new Slice and Dice. You just refresh it every 25-30 second, just like you did with SnD. Because with Cut to the Chase, you basically don't have to worry about SnD anymore. Sure, have an eye on the timer bar, but in all of these 59 minutes, SnD dropped exactly once for me, and this was me being plain stupid. On 99% of the cases, your energy will cap out before your SnD ends.
We have a bit of inconsistency with the Roguecraft Spreadsheet here, which predicts me only doing 1982 DPS. Will have to take a closer look as to why.
Also I'd like to do some more tests on a level 70 test dummy, to further examine the DPS difference between Combat and Mutilate. Do test dummies lose health (for Prey on the Weak), and are there any outside of the major cities, so that I can perform tests unaffected by other player's debuffs?
Are the test dummies murderable?
The consensus seems to be that Mutilate outdoes combat on murderable mobs only. Seems that there'll be a distinct lack of those in WotLk.
One last thought about the question of who should provide the +3% crit to the raid: shaman, paladin, or rogue.
Besides the question of who can fit the points into their spec with the least loss, there are three other factors that come to mind: accessibility, up-time, and sacrifice.
By accessibility, I mean how easy is it for the raid members to benefit from your buff. I think there's no question that shaman wins hands down. This is because the shaman buffs the raid members, instead of debuffing the boss. One shaman totem will allow everyone to have the bonus crit even when there are multiple mobs to be tanked, and if I understand correctly, they also buff healers to have +3% crit for their heals.
By up-time I mean which class has the easiest time maintaining the buff. Again, I think Shaman wins hands down because all they have to do is drop a totem every 2 minutes, where as a paladin has to refresh regularly and a rogue has to hope that his poisons refresh themselves.
Lastly, by sacrifice I mean what does that class give up while maintaining the buff. I think rogues win here (although it's probably a tie with paladins) because they will be poisoning the main target whether or not they have the talent. A shaman on the other hand gives up the possibility of dropping a different air totem, which is a pretty huge sacrifice considering Grace of Air and Windfury are also air totems. Of course, that's only an issue if you have fewer than three shaman.
So overall, I'd say that the Shaman should be on crit buff duty and that most assassination rogues will not gain any value by spending points in Master Poisoner.
Totem of Wrath is a fire totem. Replaces Firetongue totem which became the generic spell power totem.
Overall if you wanna go with "ease".
Elemental Shaman will spec into the totem for pve and will drop it. It provides not only crit but added spell power over Flametongue.
Ret Paladins will have it in their spec, it's early in the ret tree and there's really not much else to gain, it will be up every judgement which is part of their dps rotation. Only downtime is if he's forced to be out of it for 30 sec.
Mutilate rogues then have a choice with Turn the Tables for personal dps or Master Poisoner for raid dps. There is downtimes with proc luck, envenom use. Could be minimized to zero if played with that intention.
Holy Paladins might have it but prob unable to use it much anymore. Judgements were put on a GCD so it creates a gap in their healing spams. Would only be able to judge if they can afford to.
By accessibility, I mean how easy is it for the raid members to benefit from your buff. I think there's no question that shaman wins hands down. This is because the shaman buffs the raid members, instead of debuffing the boss. One shaman totem will allow everyone to have the bonus crit even when there are multiple mobs to be tanked, and if I understand correctly, they also buff healers to have +3% crit for their heals.
Totem of wrath does not increase critical chance of heals.
Last edited by teiglin : 10/05/08 at 1:31 AM.
Reason: added quote for clarity
Ok, so I went out and tested Mutilate some, at first it was a bit awkward juggling SnD, Rupture, HfB, keeping a eye on energy AND watching out for unlucky Deadly Poison stacks... However those things smooth out eventually, and after that it becomes a bit amusing and refreshing.
I have to say though. I've encountered some weird stuff, namely Envenom had a few quirks... When I tested on the Boss Dummy, my hit rating was severely inadequate due to a PvP premade rogue( It truly does suck a lot) so I had issues with hitting with my specials. One thing I did catch a glimpse of was this, if your Envenom misses, you still get the Envenom buff... this caused me to drop SnD on several occasions, however as you get used to it, you can exploit such situations for your own benefit, namely repeat the Envenom in case the first misses, you basically gained 1-3 seconds of Extra Envenom buff time.
I had some issues with the rotation though but I suspect that me not having the SnD and Rupture Glyphs caused this, and that having those 2 would greatly smooth the rotation.
How are your experiences with the Glyphs?
Elemental Shaman will spec into the totem for pve and will drop it. It provides not only crit but added spell power over Flametongue.
..
Holy Paladins might have it but prob unable to use it much anymore. Judgements were put on a GCD so it creates a gap in their healing spams. Would only be able to judge if they can afford to.
You can also count on most prot paladins having it. With parry moved to tier 1 in ret, it's possible to get absolutely everything you want and still have the points for heart of the crusader. Example build: Clicky
An elemental shaman will always spec and drop Totem of Wrath for their own personal DPS. You still can't count on 100% uptime. The totem must be dropped within range of the mob and totems only have a 30 yard range. No, the real advantage to totem of wrath is that it's AOE while all other versions of +3% crit must be individually applied to the target. Not every fight is patchwerk.
This will be academic if ele shaman aren't given a very large DPS buff before launch.
10/03/08, 8:43 PM
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